Groups who represent gun owners yet advance restrictions and controls on gun owners – like a backyard range ban in Florida, or claiming credit for passing the Brady Registration system on a federal level – are the real scammers here.

Yesterday, the National Rifle Association warned that a shady organization is trying to scam Florida gun owners.

A mass email alert was sent out via the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, its lobbying arm. Marion P. Hammer, a past president of the NRA and current president of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, explained that a group called "Florida Gun Rights" (FLGR) was reaching out to gun owners claiming that a "Backyard Range Ban" bill was pending in the Legislature and that gun owners should be concerned.

Wrote Hammer: "Make no mistake, there is NO SUCH BILL." She explained that a pending bill, HB-41, simply adds a subsection to existing law "to prohibit the discharge of firearms in residential neighborhoods that have a density of one or more dwellings per acre."

Hammer did not return a call for comment yesterday afternoon, but in her email, she alleged that the FLGR is only taking advantage of gun owners' fears to collect donations.

"When FLGR asks you to send them money to fund their imaginary operation," she wrote, "they use a Tallahassee, Florida, address for you to mail your checks. But FLGR's address is actually a drop box in a UPS Store in a strip mall in Tallahassee where UPS employees box up their customers' mail and ship it off to their customers' real address somewhere else. She pointed out that FLGR's "corporate documents clearly show their principal place of business is Colorado."

On FLGR's own website, the organization is described as "Florida's largest and only no-compromise gun rights organization." It solicits donations at the "liberty level" ($30), "patriot level" ($50), and "freedom level" ($100). [ROFLMAO!] No one responded immediately to a request for comment sent through the site.

The website states that "FLGR is organized as a non-profit, state-level affiliate of the National Association for Gun Rights, a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan grassroots organization made up of gun owners and lovers of liberty." The National Association for Gun Rights is indeed organized as a nonprofit, but FLGR is listed as a limited liability company (LLC) with the State of Florida.

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) claims to be "the fastest-growing gun rights organization in the country" since its 2001 inception, claiming more than 3 million members. But over the years, it has sparred frequently with the NRA (NAGR considers the NRA to be spineless!) and its founder, Dudley Brown, has been a controversial and bombastic figure who regularly attacks his fellow Republicans for not being conservative enough.

Photo by Guillermo Pis Gonzalez via Shutterstock.com

The Second Amendment Foundation, another pro-gun group, has called Brown "a political bomb-throwing bully whose stock in trade is to incite distrust and discontent within the ranks of the gun rights movement to enhance his own fund-raising efforts and power base." A political rival described him in a Denver magazine as "a political terrorist and a modern-day charlatan who operates in the shadows and portrays himself as a supposed ‘Christian,’ but he uses the people naive enough to believe him and financially support him.”

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New Times left a request for comment with NAGR yesterday. We'll update if there's any response.

In the meantime, here's some of Hammer's warning:

Further, FLGR has no registered lobbyist in Florida, which means either it's not really lobbying, or that it is lobbying illegally.

In short, FLGR is nothing but a fundraising organization that (except for some paperwork formalities) has no presence in Florida except for a shell game of addresses for service of legal documents and to rake in contributions.

It is clearly just another name for the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) a primarily Internet run organization based in Colorado with mail drop boxes around the country to receive contributions.

Since FLGR doesn't do anything NAGR couldn't do on its own, It has no apparent purpose except to double-dip the wallets of well-meaning gun owners who haven't looked beyond the group's name and rhetoric.

FLGR's email claims they are a non-profit, nonpartisan, single-purpose organization. FLGR is not incorporated as a nonprofit Florida corporation. FLGR is registered as Florida LLC (normally a for-profit small business). Their single purpose seems to be conning you (regardless of your political party) into sending them money.

Their messages are misleading rhetoric designed to inflame. There is no "neighborhood shooting range" bill to stop. Yet, FLGR continues to email Florida Gun Owners raising money on a nonexistent bill."